They say journalism is “the first rough draft of history”; indeed, such is the speed which newspaper stories are often researched and written, many a reporter might wish that they had more of the facts which emerge later at their fingertips when compiling the piece.

Still, I’d argue that it’s not that rough a draft and many stories written with raw immediacy stand the test of time much more often than not.

Flick through any newspaper archive from years past and you will get a real sense of what that era was really like, social attitudes and all.

I remember a story on the front of the Impartial a few years back about a member of staff at a local school being warned about giving a young pupil a biscuit. All very innocent as it was, the staff member was warned that this could be misconstrued as “grooming”.

When I showed the page to someone outside the area, their reaction was “wow, that’s a story of this age"!

So it was; often the issue of the day is best highlighted in a story of the experience of one or two individuals.

That’s the case in County Westmeath with teacher, Enoch Burke, sacked and at one point jailed in a very public disagreement with his school about its policy over transgenderism. It’s a subject of these times which divides people in such a controversial way which seems to ignore the feelings and life experiences of transgender people.

As society becomes evermore secular, this is just one issue that people of faith struggle with in what they see as the “creeping normalisation” of the changing of matters they took for granted before. While people of no faith, on the other hand, see religious dogma being imposed on people’s rights.

Indeed, I would further argue that in addition to the trans issue itself, the story also highlights today’s aggressive and nasty public discourse where, whatever side of the discussion people are on, there is an intolerance and polemical inability to disagree well.

Freedom of speech and expression clash with the right to offend or not. It’s also an age when we have to have “hate speech” legislation to rein in some horrible language and our media has become more provocatively right wing and Americanised. And not in a good way.

For the uninitiated, the Enoch Burke story had been simmering for some time and first came to a head last August. Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, in line with its school policy, asked teachers to address a trans pupil by their preferred name and pronoun; they instead of he.

Burke, a strict evangelical Christian, refused on the grounds it was against his religious beliefs and was suspended pending a hearing. However, he kept turning up for school and following the disruption of them having to rearrange classes around Burke as he sat in his empty classroom, the High Court granted the school an order banning him from the premises.

But he kept turning up, and for defying the court order he ended up in prison for contempt of court. He spent 108 days in Mountjoy jail before being released, on condition he stayed away from the school.

In January, after a disciplinary hearing, Burke was sacked. But he keeps turning up for school. The court has slapped a fine of 700 Euro a day on him, but he arrives each day, usually under the watch of press cameras.

This week, his fines will reach 10,000 Euro.

To many of us on the outside, the Burke family seem an odd zealous bunch. Enoch is one of 10 siblings, all with Biblical names such as Elijah, Ammi, Josiah and so on. The family stays largely outside of worldly society and all 10 were home schooled by their mother, Martina.

They are academic high flyers, with Enoch Burke authoring religious books on his particular brand of Christianity, one of which insists, “there is no room in Christendom for those who desire an easy life".

He turns up every day at the school like some latter-day Martin Luther who said during the Reformation: “Here I stand, I can do no other.”

He’s no Luther, though, to the many people of faith who believe in treating people with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love.

Burke says he’s being fined for his religious beliefs, but that’s stretching it beyond breaking point. He’s being fined because he’s breaking the law and defying the courts. Yes, he disagrees with the law and he’s entitled to speak up against it.

Despite all its faults and increasing secularity, he still lives in a country where he’s free to worship and hold his Christian beliefs. Yet, he feels entitled to break the law of the land and to force his firebrand beliefs on to others.

The way he’s breaking it means that in the middle of it all the disruption, the lives and education of the children that were under his care are being severely impacted. Does he feel his rights trump all theirs?

Recently, there was a case in England of a woman, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, arrested outside an abortion clinic and asked if she was praying, and was charged with intimidation.

Again, her supporters said she was being persecuted for praying; but again there is context in that she was inside a buffer zone outside the clinic which was created to protect women going in.

As uneasy as some people find this policy, again it is the law of the land and she broke it. And again, she still lives in a society where she can hold her beliefs and has avenues to speak out.

As regards the Burke issue, there are many people who simply do not understand the issue of transgenderism.

Indeed, one has only to look at the difficulties faced by Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon over the placing of a transgender prisoner Isla Bryson in a female only prison after being convicted of raping two women.

Sturgeon faces a crisis after side-stepping a question about whether Bryson was a man or a woman.

Somewhere in the middle of all the controversy over Enoch Burke, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce and Isla Bryson, the noise has become so great that the issues of conscience on all sides are no longer being heard.

These are stories of the age which are not going away anytime soon.

 

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